ADATA has launched a new M.2 2280 SATA 6Gbps interface version of its Ultimate SU800 3D NAND SSD that will be available in capacities of up to 1TB and offer good performance at attractive price points.

Based on TLC 3D NAND and powered by an SMI controller, the Ultimate SU800 M.2 2280 SSD will offer a sequential performance of up to 560MB/s for read and up to 520MB/s for write. As noted, the Ultimate SU800 SSD uses a 22x80x3.5mm M.2 2280 form-factor and a SATA 6Gbps interface.

It will be available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities, feature LDPC ECC (error correcting code), SLC Caching algorithm with DRAM Cache Buffer and a high TBW with MTBF of 2 million hours.

Unfortunately, ADATA did not reveal any details regarding the price of the M.2 2280 SATA 6Gbps version of the Ultimate SU800 SSD but we suspect it should not be too far from the 2.5-inch version, priced at around €130 for the 512GB version in Europe.

Western Digital has formally entered the Solid State Drive (SSD) market today with two offerings in the WD Blue and WD Green product lines. The SSDs will broaden the company’s portfolio of existing hard drives for PCs and workstations. Consumers stand to benefit from the combination of reliable storage, 1.75M hours MTTF, reduced power overhead and less heat when compared to HDDs.

WD Blue SSDs by design are optimized for multitasking and resource-heavy applications. At launch they will be available in 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities, and in both 2.5-inch/7mm case or M.2 2280 form factors. Being a performance drive, the WD Blue SSD is expected to offer up to 545MB/s and 525MB/s sequential read and write speeds, and endurance of up to 400 TBW. Western Digital has told us that the suggested retail price will start from $79 for the 250GB model to for the $299 for the 1TB model.

WD Green SSDs are set to deliver essential-class performance and be available in 120GB and 240GB capacities, and in both 2.5-inch/7mm case or M.2 2280 form factors. The WD Green lineup of SSD drives are designed to have a sequential read and write times of up to 540MB/s and 405MB/s and endurance up to 80TBW. The drives have an expected launch date of later this quarter.

Both drive offerings will include free, downloadable, WD SSD Dashboard software, as well as are protected by a three year limited warranty.

According to a report over at Hardware.info that managed to get their hands on an internal Intel document, it appears that Intel's Haswell platform might have a problem with its USB 3.0 host controller.

Although it is not as serious as the Cougar Point SATA 3Gbps bug, the USB 3.0 controller on Haswell platform will have issues with the S3 sleep mode and devices that are connected via USB 3.0 port. Apparently, when waking from S3 sleep, applications that are accesssing the data from, for example, USB 3.0 storage device might freeze and force the user to reopen them manually.

Thankfully, the bug will be more of a nuisance rather than a problem as any loss of data is excluded. Intel does not plan to delay the launch and it is still scheduled for mid-2013, according to an Intel representative comment for Hardware.info. Intel is apparently still resarching what other consequences this issue could possibly have and plans to resolve the problem in a future CPU stepping.

Marvell announced mass deployment of the Marvel 88SS9187 SATA controller fueled by high performance embedded processor technology. The 88SS9187 features a six gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) SATA Revision 3.1 compliant host interface optimised for the fast-growing solid state drive (SSD) sector.

It is being targeted for the consumer, mobile and enterprise markets. A significant number of high-profile SSD manufacturers are set to deploy Marvell’s newest solution immediately, with additional partners expected to integrate 88SS9187 implementations later this year.

Marvell’s newest SSD controller boasts an open architecture that supports industry-standard, high-speed NAND Flash interface up to 200MB/s per channel. The 88SS9187 also has new correction capability thanks to its high performance ECC engine with Adaptive Read and Write Scheme and on-chip RAID functionality to allow use of the latest generation of NAND Flash devices in the fast-growing SSD markets.

Alan Armstrong, vice president of Marketing for the Storage Business Group at Marvell Semiconductor said that the technology allowed SSD manufacturers to fully customise their products to meet specific customer demands and distinguish their products based on price, performance, power and functionality.

The drives are backwards compatible with SATA 2 3Gb/s and suggested retail pricing for Force Series 3 90GB is $159, whereas Force Series GT 90GB should go for $199. You can find out more on Corsair's page here.

Confirming that it means business in the motherboard market segment, Sapphire has announced two new mini ITX motherboard based on Intel's H67 and H61 chipset that will be a part of its Pure Platinum series.

Both motherboards feature support for Intel's 2nd gen Core LGA1155 processors and comes with Sapphire Diamond Black chokes, support for up to 8GB of DDR3 memory in two dual channel slots, mini PCI-E x1 slot (most probably located on the back of the motherboard, although we couldn't find a picture of it), full length PCI-Express x16 slot in case you decide to go for dedicated graphics card, Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports (eight including headers) integrated Bluetooth, integrated 7.1-channel audio and DVI, VGA, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs with support for dual video output with a pair of any of those ports.

The differences between the Pure Platinum H67 and the H61 lay in a couple of features, including the number of SATA ports. The H67 features two SATA 6Gbps and two SATA 3Gbps ports with support for RAID as well as support for Intel's Virtu, while the rest is pretty much indentical.

The Pure Platinum H67 is already listed in Europe with a lowest price tag se at €100,89 and the H61 will, of course, be a bit cheaper.

It looks like we will talk about Intel's Sandy Bridge motherboard recall for quite a while. Gigabyte just sent out a press release where it said that it has software that can test whether your board is good or bad, of course it tests only P67 and H67 motherboards.

Gigabyte is trying to sell the story that only users with more than two SATA devices might be affected, as SATA 3 ports are not affected. We like the choice of words where Gigabyte tells its customers that “not so important devices like DVD rom (Nicht so wichtige Geräte (z.B. DVD-ROM) / translated from German press release ed.)” should get attached to SATA 2 affected port. We don’t want to prejudge here but installing from a DVD on a bad SATA 2 port can also result in a very long and bad day.

So, Gigabyte was so nice to come up with a software simply called GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check, available here.

The software can tell you if you have drives attached to affected SATA 2 ports but it cannot tell you if you have an affected motherboard. Gigabyte clearly tells you that there is no way to guarantee if you are one of the five percent of all affected boards but even then try to avoid use of SATA 2. Remember it might take up to three years for this port to fail and for most it will never happen.

The small program will simply tell you to avoid SATA 2 ports and try to plug all to SATA 3. SATA 3 is backward compatible with SATA 2 devices and they will work just fine. If you don't use affected SATA 2 ports software will simply tell you “SATA configuration (is) OK”. If you have devices attached on SATA 2 ports the software will tell you “(Please) move 1 or 2 devices from (the) Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports to the free SATA 3.0 ports“.

In the third scenario, if you use both SATA 2 and SATA 3 ports, the program advises that (“Use of (the) Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports is not recommended”). We are quite sure that other manufacturer are also working on a similar solution to tell you what ports are you using. The alternative is simple, just open your case, and see it for yourself as SATA 2 and SATA 3 are usually painted in different colours, just consult your manual.

Following the introduction of the Caviar Black series of SATA 6Gbps drives, Western Digital has expanded support for the new speedy standard to cheaper and smaller Caviar Blue drives.

The new Caviar Blue series will be available in 250, 320, 500, 750 and 1000GB capacities, but it will feature less cache than the Black series. The 250, 320 and 500GB models feature 16MB of cache and prices start at just €33, making them the cheapest SATA 6Gbps drives on the market.